mo nt hlyreview.o rg http://monthlyreview.org/2008/05/01/united-states-o f- insecurity-interview-with-noam-chomsky

Noam Chomsky and Gabriel Matthew Schivone more on US Politics/Economy

United States of Insecurity: Interview with Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is an Institute Prof essor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hismost recent books are Interventions (City Lights, 2007), Failed States (Metropolitan Books, 2007), andInside Lebanon: Journey to a Shattered Land with Noam and Carol Chomsky (Monthly Review Press, 2007).Gabriel Matthew Schivone is an editor of Days Beyond Recall: Alternative Media and Literary Journal andwinner of the 2007 Frederica Hearst Prize f or Lyrical Poetry.This article is based on an interview conductedby telephone and e-mail November 27, 2007February 11, 2008. The interviewer thanks Mary ElizabethBarnes f or help with edit ing and transcribing this interview.

A State of Insecurity in the Post-9/11 World

Gabriel Matthew Schivone: In a recent interview, Abdel Bari Atwan, author and editor of the London-basedArabic daily newspaper Al-Quds Al Arabi , said that President Bush is not ending terrorism nor is heweakening it, as he claims in one of his strongest assertions with regard to his so-called War on Terror.Rather al-Qaeda now has powerf ully developed into more of an ideology than an organization. As Atwandescribes it, al-Qaeda is expanding like Kentucky Fried Chicken, opening f ranchises all over the world.Thats the problem, he says. The Americans are no saf er. Their country is a f ortress now, the UnitedStates of Security. Is this accurate?

Noam Chomsky: Except f or the last sentence, it s accurate. Theres good reason to think that the UnitedStates is very vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Thats not my opinion, thats the opinion of U.S. intelligence,of specialists of nuclear terror like Harvard prof essor Graham Allison, and f ormer def ense secretaryRobert McNamara and others, who have warned that the probability of even a nuclear attack in the UnitedStates is not trivial. So, it s not a f ortress.

One of the things that Bush hasnt been doing is improving security. So, f or example, if you look at thegovernment commission af ter 9/11, one of its recommendationswhich is a natural oneis to improvesecurity of the U.S.Canadian border. I mean, if you look at that border, it s very porous. You or I could walkacross it somewhere with a suitcase holding components of a nuclear bomb. The Bush administration didnot f ollow that recommendation. What it did instead was f ortif y the Mexican border, which was not regardedas a serious source of potential terrorism. They in f act slowed the rate of growth of border guards on theCanadian border.

But quite apart f rom that, the major part of Atwans comment is quite correct. Bush administration programshave not been designed to reduce terror. In f act, theyve been designed in a wayas was anticipated byintelligence analysts and othersto increase terror.

So take, say, the invasion of Iraq. It was expected that it would probably have the ef f ect of increasing terrorand it did, though f ar more than was anticipated. There was a recent study by two leading terrorismexperts (using RAND Corporation government data) which concluded that what they called the Iraqef f ectmeaning, the ef f ect of the Iraq invasion on incidents of terror in the worldwas huge. In f act, theyf ound that terror increased about seven-f old af ter the invasion of Iraq. Thats quite an increasea lotmore than was anticipated.

Also, the invasion increased the threat of nuclear prolif erationf or a very good reason. One of Israelsleading historians, Martin van Creveld, discussing the possibility of Iran developing a bomb, pointed out theobvious. He said that, af ter the invasion of Iraq, if Iran isnt developing a nuclear deterrent, theyre crazy(thats his word, crazy). Why? Because the United States made it explicit that it is willing to invade anycountry it likes, as long as that country cant def end itself . It was known that Iraq was basicallydef enseless. Well, that sends a message to the world. It says, If you dont obey what the U.S. demands,

they can invade you, so you better develop a deterrent.

Nobodys going to compete with the United States in a military capacity. I mean, the U.S. spends as much onthe military as the rest of the world combined, and it s f ar more sophisticated and advanced. So, what theylldo is turn to weapons of the weak. And weapons of the weak are basically two: terror and nuclear weapons.

So, sure, the invasion of Iraq predictably increased the threat of terror and of prolif eration, and the same istrue of other actions. And we can continue. One of the major parts of the so-called war on terror is anef f ort to carry out surveillance and control of f inancial interactions which enter into terrorist activit ies. Well,yeah, thats been going on. But according to the Treasury Bureau [Of f ice of Foreign Assets Control] thatsbeen responsible f or it, theyre spending f ar more time and energy on possible violations on the U.S.embargo on Cuba than they are on al-Qaeda transactions.

GMS: Why would elites be making the United States, as you say, more vulnerable to attacks in the f uture? Itdoesnt seem reasonable, logically speaking, as educated, sensible, intelligent people, that theyd endangerthemselves personally and endanger their f amilies, in the short or long term, by raising the threat of terrorto manif old levels now. Terror would surely threaten them personally, especially with regard to more attacksbeing committed inside the United States and throughout the world. I mean, isnt there something peculiar inthis sort of behavior?

NC: I think theres something pathological about it but it s not peculiar. I mean, if you look at it within thef ramework of elite perceptions, it has a kind of rationality. Short- term considerations of prof it and powerquite of ten tend to overwhelm longer-term considerations of security and welf are, even f or your ownchildren.

I mean, take environmental concerns. Take, say, lead. It was known in the early 1920s by the hugecorporations that were producing lead-based products that lead was poisonous. They knew it. We nowknowtheres been extensive discussion and revelationsand they knew it right away. But they concealedit. And they paid huge amounts of money and ef f ort and legal maneuvers and lobbying and so on to preventany constraints on it. Well, you know, those windowsills poisoned with lead paint are going to harm theirown children, but the interests of prof it overwhelmed it. And thats standard.

And take, say, tobacco. It s been known f or decades, f rom the very beginning, that it s a very poisonousproduct. That didnt stop the tobacco producers f rom trying to get everyone possible to smoke. Makewomen smoke, children and otherseven their own. These are conf licting demands of prof it and power onthe one hand, and of care about even your own f amily on the other hand. And very commonly prof it andpower win out. I think it s pathological. But it s not a pathology of individuals, it s a pathology of socialinstitutions.

GMS: When you say the common loyalty to power and prof it among elites superseding any care of otherhuman beings is a pathology of social institutions and not individuals, are you ref erring to certain valuesof American society?

NC: It is not specif ic to American society. These are institutional properties of semi-competit ive statecapitalist societies.

Suppose, f or example, that there are three U.S.-based conglomerates that produce automobiles: GM, Ford,Chrysler (no longer). They were able to gain their status through substantial reliance on a powerf ul state,and they were able to survive the 1980s only because the president, Ronald Reagan, was the mostprotectionist in postwar history, virtually doubling protective barriers to save these and other corporationsf rom being taken over by more advanced Japanese industry. But they (more or less) survive. \

Suppose that GM invests in technology that will produce better, saf er, more ef f icient cars in twenty years,but Ford and Chrysler invest in cars that will sell tomorrow. Then GM will not be here in twenty years toprof it f rom its investment. The logic is not inexorable, but it yields very signif icant anti-social tendencies.

The Predatory Reach of Private Power

GMS: In the so-called reconstruction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2004, one of the policy- init iativeschampioned by the Bush administration right up to the present was the dismantling of the New Orleanspublic school system. The New York Times reported that, of those who could return, children and f amilieswere coming back to a much dif f erent New Orleans with a smaller [educational] system dominated by newcharter schools, along with the termination of nearly seven thousand public school employees. What arethe implications of private control of public resources, such as education, in this instance, or health care,telecommunications, Social Security, etc.?

NC: Well, there are actually two components to that, both of them leading themes of the Bushadministrations domestic policies, and of reactionary policies generally. One of them is, to put it simply, toput as many dollars as you can in the pockets of your rich f riends: that is, to increase prof its f or thewealthyto increase the wealth and power of concentrated, private capital. Thats one driving f orce in theadministrations policy. The other is to break down the social bonds that lead to people having sympathyand supportive f eelings about one another. That contributes to transf erring prof it and decision making intothe hands of concentrated private power. A component of that is to undermine the normal relationssympathy and solidaritythat people have.

Take Social Security. Social Security is based on a bond among people. If you earn a salary todaysomebody your age[young people of twenty or so] youre paying f or the welf are and survival of yourparents generation. Well, okay, thats a natural f eeling. If you want to increase the control of concentratedprivate power you have to drive that out of peoples heads. You have to create the kind of people that AynRand is talking about, where youre af ter your own welf are and you dont care what happens to anyoneelse. You have to think, Why do I have to care about that disabled woman across town who doesnt haveenough f ood to eat? I didnt do it to her. Thats her problem. She and her husband didnt invest properly;she didnt work hard enough, so what do I care if she starves to death? Well, you have to turn people intopathological monsters who think that way, if you want to ensure that unaccountable, concentrated, privatepower will dominate the world and enrich itself . So, these things go together.

I dont happen to have children in the local schoolI did, but my kids are all grown up. So, if I were to f ollowthis line of reasoning, I would say, Well, why should I pay taxes? My kids dont go to school; Im not gettinganything out of it. What do I care if the kid across the street doesnt go to school? You can turn peopleinto pathological monsters who think like that. And eliminating the public school system is one part of it.

The public school system is a sign of solidarity, sympathy, and concern of people in generaleven if itdoesnt benef it me, myself . Theres a pathological brand of whats called libertarianism which wants toeliminate that and turn you into a monster who cares only about yourself . And thats one aspect ofundermining democracy, and undermining the attitudes that underlie democracy, namely, that there shouldbe a concern f or others and a communal way of reacting to community concerns.

GMS: Well, lets consider the elimination of the public school system altogether. Would that imply somethinglike what we see in countries in the third world, where those who can af f ord to send their children to schooldo, and much of the remaining population simply does not have an education? Is this a direction privatepower might be moving toward in this country?

NC: There are signif icant f orces driving the country in that direction, quite apart f rom Bush-stylereactionaries seeking to enrich the powerf ul and lett ing the rest f end somehow f or themselves.

Take the reliance f or school f unding on property taxes. In earlier years, when communities were not sosharply separated between rich and poor, that may have been more or less acceptable. Today it means thatthe wealthy suburbs have better schools than impoverished urban or rural areas. Thats only the barebeginning. Suburban elites who work downtown do not have to pay the taxes to keep the city viable f orthem; that burden f alls disproportionately on the poor. Studies of public transportation have shown thatthe poorer subsidize the richer and more privileged. And these measures prolif erate in numerous ways.

The Iraq War: Responsibility and Resistance

GMS: Everywhere f rom high school and college campuses to bus stops and dinner tables, we hear a lotabout what a quagmire and costly mess Iraq has become f or the United States. It is now being blamedas a Republican war, deplorable f or how the Bush administration handled the occupation. We hear: Itshouldve been done this or that way. Now that were there we cant leave; it s our responsibility to f ix theproblem we made because it ll only get worse if we leave. Those people if lef t alone will kill each other.And so on. What do you say to these arguments that seem to interweave with each other? And what wouldyou suggest in terms of what some might call an honorable solution? International measures, immediatewithdrawalboth?

NC: The posit ion of the liberal doves during the Vietnam War was articulated lucidly by historian andKennedy advisor Arthur Schlesinger, when the war was becoming too costly f or the U.S. and they begantheir shif t f rom hawk to dove. He wrote that we all pray that the hawks will be right in believing that thesurge of the day will work, and if they are, we may be saluting the wisdom and statesmanship of theAmerican government in gaining victory in a land that they have lef t in wreck and ruin. But it probably wontwork, so strategy should be rethought. The principles, and the reasoning, carry over with litt le change tothe Iraq invasion.

There is no honorable solution to a war of aggressionthe supreme international crime that dif f ersf rom other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that f ollows, in the wording of the NurembergTribunal, which condemned Nazi war criminals to death f or such crimes as pre-emptive war. We can onlyseek the least awf ul solution. In doing so, we should bear in mind some f undamental principles, amongthem, that aggressors have no rights, only responsibilit ies.

The responsibilit ies are to pay enormous reparations f or the harm they have caused, to hold the criminalsresponsible accountable, and to pay close attention to the wishes of the victims. In this case, we know theirwishes quite well. Poll af ter poll has yielded results similar to those reported by the military in December,af ter a study of f ocus groups around the country. They report that Iraqis f rom all over the country and allwalks of lif e have shared belief s, which they enumerated: The American invasion is to blame f or thesectarian violence and other horrors, and the invaders should withdraw, leaving Iraqor whats lef t of itto Iraqis.

It tells us a lot about our own moral and intellectual culture that the voice of Iraqis, though known, is noteven considered in the thoughtf ul and comprehensive articles in the media reviewing the options availableto Washington. And that there is no comment on this rather striking f act, considered quite natural.

GMS: Is there anyone saying the war was f undamentally wrong?

NC: In the case of Vietnam, years af ter Kennedys invasion, liberal doves began to say that the war beganwith blundering ef f orts to do good, but by 1969 it was clear that it was a mistake that was too costly tous (Anthony Lewis, at the crit ical extreme, in the New York Times). In the same year, 70 percent of the publicregarded the war as not a mistake but f undamentally wrong and immoral. That gap between public andelite educated opinion persists until the most recent polls, a f ew years ago.

In the media and journals, it is very hard to f ind any voice that crit icizes the invasion or Iraq on principledgrounds, though there are some. Arthur Schlesinger, f or example, took a very dif f erent posit ion than he didon Vietnam. When the bombs started f alling on Baghdad he quoted President Roosevelts condemnation ofthe Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as a date which will live in inf amy. Now, Schlesinger wrote, it isAmericans who live in inf amy as their government f ollows the path of f ascist Japan. But that was a lonevoice among elites.

Dissidents, of course, describe the supreme international crime as f undamentally wrong. I havent seenpolls about public att itudes on this question.

GMS: What determines when people decide to undertake more serious or severe resistance ef f orts af ter

the the limits of possible protest are reached? In a letter to George Steiner in the New York Review ofBooks, in 1967, you gave the example of what this might look like, ref erring back sixty years ago to theSpanish Civil War, when people f ound it quite necessary to join international brigades to f ight against thearmy of their own country. Or, applied to Vietnam, that the possible actions one might undertake in suchcircumstances could include traveling to Hanoi as a hostage against f urther bombing. Thats pretty f ar-reaching, relatively speaking, to what we see in current resistance ef f orts against the war. Whats yourf eeling about the possibilit ies f or such methods today in relation to the Iraq war, border action, or othercriminal policy in the Middle East and elsewhere? Do situations have to get worse bef ore people orindividuals might deem this sort of action necessary?

NC: In the case of Vietnam, serious resistance began several years af ter Kennedys invasion of SouthVietnam. I was one of a f ew people trying to organize national tax resistance in early 1965, at a t ime whenSouth Vietnam, always the main target, was being crushed by intensive bombing and other crimes. By 196667, ref usal to serve in the invading army was beginning to become a signif icant phenomenon, along withsupport f or resistance by organized groups, primarily RESIST, f ormed in 1967 (and still f unctioning). Bythen the war had passed f ar beyond the invasion of Iraq in destructiveness and violence. In f act, at anycomparable stage, protest against the Iraq invasion considerably exceeds anything during the Indochinawars.

As f or living with the victims to help them or provide them some measure of protection, that is aphenomenon of the 1980sf or the f irst t ime in imperial history, to my knowledge, in reaction to Reagansterrorist wars that devastated Central America, one of his many horrendous crimes. The solidaritymovements that took shape then have now extended worldwide, though only in limited ways to Iraq,because the catastrophe created by Cheney-Rumsf eld-Wolf owitz and the rest is so extraordinary that it isalmost impossible to survive in the wreckagethe main reason why reporting is so skimpy; it is simply toodangerous, unlike earlier wars of imperial aggression.

A Question of Neutrality in the Schools

GMS: Lets talk about the role of intellectuals in all of this. Heres a question that might be relevant f orstudents to hear especially: Youve suggested that the major inducements to becoming absorbed into theideology of the overall scholarship in this country, largely subservient to power interests, are the signif icantrewards in prestige and af f luence, as well as access to power and authority. So, what are some of thethings youve observed in your own time in the academy as a source of this process in American education?

NC: Educational institutions like universit ies dont exist in a social vacuum; they rely f or their existence onthe external resources of the society. They rely on the state and contributions f rom, basically, the wealthy.And the state and the wealthy sectors are very closely linked. So, the universit ies are in a certain socialsystem in which they ref lect a certain distribution of power. Theyre embedded in it. And that means thestruggle f or university independenceor independence of thought, and willingness to challengeis a hardstruggle. Youre struggling against social conditions that militate against it.

And it s true, what you said is correct, there are rewards and privileges that come along with conf ormity, buttheres more to say. There are also punishments and abuse, loss of jobs, and so on, that come f romchallenging systems of power. Both f actors operate. So, yes, theres a constant struggle to try andmaintain university independence, and it s a hard one.

Sometimes it s argued that the universit ies should just be neutral, that they shouldnt take posit ions onanything. Well, theres merit in that, I would like to see that in some abstract universe, but in this universewhat that posit ion entails is conf ormity to the distribution of external power.

So let me take a concrete case, aspects of which are still very much alive on my own campus. Lets takesome distance so we can see things more clearly. Back in the 1960s, in my university, MIT, the polit icalscience department was carrying out studies with students and f aculty on counterinsurgency in Vietnam.Okay, that ref lected the distribution of power in the outside society. The U.S. is involved incounterinsurgency in Vietnam: it s our patriotic duty to help. A f ree and independent university would have

been carrying out studies on how poor peasants can resist the attack of a predatory superpower. Can youimagine how much support that would have gotten on campus? Well, okay, thats what neutrality turns intowhen it s carried outwhen the ideal, which is a good ideal, is pursued unthinkingly. It ends up beingconf ormity to power.

Lets take a current case. Right now theres a lot of concern about nuclear weapons in Iran. Well, again,take my own campus, MIT. In the 1970s, Iran was under the rule of a brutal tyrant who the United States andBritain had imposed by f orce in a military coup overthrowing the democratic government. So Iran wastheref ore an ally. Well, in the government, people like Henry Kissenger, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsf eld, PaulWolf owitz, and others, were calling f or Iran to develop nuclear capacities and nuclear power and so on,which means a step short of nuclear weapons. And my own university, MIT, made an arrangement with theShah of Iran, the dictator, to train Iranian nuclear engineers. It was the 1970s. There was enormous studentprotest about that. But very litt le f aculty protest; in f act, the f aculty approved it. And it was instituted. Inf act, some of the people now running the Iranian nuclear programs are graduates of MIT. Well, is theuniversity neutral in those respects? No, not really; it s conf orming to power interests. In this case, to goback to an earlier part of our conversation, they did conf orm to short- term commitments to power andprof it but with long-term consequences that were quite harmf ul to the very same people who institutedthem.

Henry Kissinger, who at least has the virtue of honesty, was asked by the Washington Post why he is nowobjecting to the same Iranian programs that he was instrumental in instituting when he was in of f ice back inthe 1970s. And he said, f rankly, well, they were an ally then. They needed nuclear power. And now they arean enemy so they dont need nuclear power. Okay, hes a complete cynic, but hes an honest one, f ortunately. But should universit ies take that posit ion?

By Steady Drips of Water: Activism and Social Change

GMS: For the last question Id like to talk a litt le about providing alternatives, f or people trying to f igure outthings, searching f or answers, seeing through propaganda, developing solidarity, init iating movements.Heres a good quote I came across that might be a good starting point, f rom the notable novelist E. M.Forester, writ ing at the beginning stages of the Second World War, in 1939, in his essay What I Believe: Ido not believe in Belief . But this is an age of f aith, and there are so many militant creeds that, in self -def ense, one has to f ormulate a creed of ones own. Tolerance, good temper and sympathyin a worldwhich is rent by religious and racial persecution, in a world where ignorance rules, and science, who oughtto have ruled, plays the subservient pimp. He repeats: Tolerance, good temper and sympathythey arewhat matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the f ront bef ore long.

What are some of the things hes getting at here that we can discuss in terms of alternatives f or thef uture, and social organization?

NC: Im of ten asked questions like that, in maybe a dozen e-mails a night or in talks and so on, and Imalways at a loss to answer. Not because I cant think of an answer, but because I think we all know theanswer. There arent any magic keys here; there are no mysterious ways of approaching things. What ittakes is just what has led to progress and success in the past. We live in a much more civilized world thanwe did even when Forster was writ ing, in many respects.

Say, womens rights, or opposition to tortureor even opposition to aggressionenvironmental concerns,recognition of some of the crimes of our own history, like what happened to the indigenous population. Wecan go on and on. Theres been much improvement in those areas. How? Well, because people like thoseworking in alternative media, or those we never hear about who are doing social organizing, communitybuilding, polit ical action, etc., engage themselves in trying to do something about it.

And the modes of engagement are not mysterious. You have to try and develop a crit ical, open mind, andyou have to be willing to evaluate and challenge conventional belief saccept them if they turn out to bevalid but reject them if , as is so of ten the case, they turn out to just ref lect power structures. And then youproceed with educational and organizing activit ies, actions as appropriate to circumstances. There is no

simple f ormula; rather, lots of options. And gradually over t ime, things improve. I mean, even the hardestrock will be eroded by steady drips of water. Thats what social change comes to and there are nomysterious modes of proceeding. Theyre hard ones, demanding ones, challenging, of ten costly. But thatswhat it takes to get a better world.

United States of Insecurity: Interview with Noam Chomsky